


Winglets: Protector

by canonkiller



Series: Wings of Fire Rewrite [3]
Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Deathbringer is a creep and Glory has a kingdom to protect, Gen, I'm putting it in your tag out of spite., this is not a ship fic Deathbringer is twice her age. get better ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 08:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13948011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canonkiller/pseuds/canonkiller
Summary: The war is over, and in the dust that settles after Glory has to deal with a certain string of events, and then has to deal with the dragon that caused them.-----Expanded / revised version of a ficlet posted on my Tumblr sideblog. Warnings for mentions of the RainWings' torture, attention being drawn to the fact that Deathbringer is an adult who was flirting with a child.





	Winglets: Protector

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crystallinedragons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystallinedragons/gifts).



Glory lay awake on her sleeping platform, alone - she'd requested it, fearing that when sleep did take her, the touch of someone else's scales would send her into nightmares she wouldn't be able to shake - begging sleep to take her as she stared up at the stars and the slivers of the three moons above. She was exhausted, mentally and physically, but rest still wouldn’t come; every time she so much as blinked, she could feel the heat of the volcano on her back, the deafening roar of a queen so immense she could barely comprehend her, claws so sharp they tore - Glory winced as she heard another dragon land on the platform. She knew even before turning that it was going to be him. What RainWing would waste their energy  _flying_  up there?

She didn’t bother to stand herself, just looked over her shoulder at the hulking NightWing. Deathbringer, the assassin, the one who had only spared her because he swore he loved her. Almost twice her age.  _Love_ was a word that she didn't want associated with the sour taste in her mouth that appeared whenever the murderer looked her way. And now he was here, and despite knowing her anger, despite knowing her fear, he was taking up most of the platform - or at least blocking her access to it, with his wings drooping just enough that they would be awkward to walk around. Did he even notice? Glory wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

She wasn’t sure where she wanted him to be right now, even though she'd asked him to join her; she couldn’t look away from him, still deeply shaken and paranoid that if she let him move that it would be _his_ talons torturing the venom out of her, but she couldn’t quite bear to look at him, either.

Her eyes drifted down to his claws -  _nope, definitely worse_  - and then to a clump of leaves that was close enough to his head that she could pretend to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he began, only his pinned-back ears revealing his stress. “What the NightWings did was unforgivable. I can understand if you never want to see me again.”

"Oh, now that they've done something wrong, you're not a NightWing any more? Whatever happened to the boasting you did when we first spoke?" Glory, anger overwhelming her fear, bit down on a growl and felt her scales blaze orange and red with fury. She hoped that he couldn’t make out the color in the dark. “This isn’t about a relationship. This is about my people being  _tortured!_ ”

He looked away from her, down at his own claws. “I knew about what they were doing, and I didn’t do anything to stop it. I want to make things better between us.”

“By the Moons, this isn’t about _us_ ,” Glory did growl this time, standing up. She was reminded again, by his head high over hers, of how much older than her he was, and how much stronger, and her stomach turned to think of him having an interest in her. “It has never been about us! There has never  _been_ an us!”

He shook his head, the curve of his lip rising to show bared, bright teeth; _he didn't even have the decency to suffer with the other NightWings,_ Glory thought. “When you looked like an IceWing, I thought you were older-”

“And when I looked like a RainWing, you didn’t stop.” She countered, tongue running over her venom-spitting fangs folded back into the roof of her mouth. “You knew I was half your age, and you knew you had power over my friends and my family and my people, and power over  _me,_  and you’re asking for forgiveness _now?_ After all of this?”

“Glory-”

"Is it because you know I can spit venom, now? That I've rescued my people and yours - despite everything they've done - and they'll defend me against you?" Her voice went hard and quiet. “Am I wrong, Deathbringer?”

He opened his mouth to answer, and then thought better of it and shut it with a snap. He shook his head, tail lashing, and began to pace his side of the platform. _No,_ she reminded herself,  _I am the Queen, and this territory is mine. He is here only because I have allowed it._  

No matter how she tried to justify it, him simply being there and being so large pushed her boundary in much further than she would have liked.

“You don’t understand,” he answered finally, his voice a low growl, “all I’ve ever known is killing. I lost my _mother_.”

“Oh, really?” Glory answered sarcastically. “I can’t relate at all. I’m sure my mother’s happy and safe as some withered corpse under a lava flow. My father, too! Probably some siblings! I'll never know, I guess!”

His expression looked lost, almost, and maybe she would have believed it if she didn’t know that it was only from having his footing pulled out from under him instead of being hurt, if she didn't know he'd had years to recover from his loss while hers was new and raw and had faces and voices she'd never known. If she didn't know he didn't care about death.

Glory took his silence and pressed the harsh edge of it to his throat. “And that doesn’t give you the right to try and - and  _seduce_ me when the only reason we met is because you wanted to kill me and my family!”

“I want to keep you safe,” Deathbringer protested faintly. “I don’t want to lose another dragon so special to me.”

Glory bit back her retort, a million ways of saying  _you don’t know me_ and  _I’m the Queen and the only reason you’re safe is because of me and my whole tribe is ready to kill you a thousand times over for breaking families like you did, you monster, nobody has ever been safe with you -_  she swallowed hard, and forced her voice calm. “If you truly want to protect me, you have to protect the RainWings. Help them recover from the pain that you have caused. Once you have _their_ trust, then we can talk - and I'll be asking them about that, not you.”

Deathbringer held her gaze, cold and steady, and slowly (hesitantly) nodded.

“But,” and she stepped forward, glaring up at him and surprising them both as he actually took a step back to give her the space, “we will never be  _together_. You may be trustworthy enough to live here, maybe even be a guard one day, maybe be a mentor, but if you try to pursue me or any other dragon so young, I will have your scales melted down to your bones and throw you into the desert to die.”

Deathbringer accepted the ferocity with a bowed head. “It was wrong of me," he began, the words sounding alien in his mouth, like he couldn't quite fathom how he was supposed to say them. "The experiments the NightWings had done, I wasn’t… I wasn’t seeing you as a dragon. I was seeing you as a trophy. Anything I can do to change that, I am willing to do.”

Glory wished she could believe him. “Then let me sleep.”

Deathbringer nodded again, turning and gliding down back to the forest floor, the faintest noise of his wings lost in the background noise of the rainforest. Glory didn’t watch him leave; voicing everything so strongly had exhausted her; she took refuge in the sounds of the rainforest - still alive, always alive - and curled up in the hopes that she would get some sleep. Out of the corner of her eye,  she saw a shift in the leaves above her.

Without a sound, a RainWing seemed to materialize out of the dark, his eyes bright and alert as he gave her a questioning flare of his ruff. Comforted, she gave Jambu a reassuring mumble, and he faded back into the shadows to keep his silent vigil over her dreams.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Winglets: Forgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14279685) by [FathomIndigo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FathomIndigo/pseuds/FathomIndigo)




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